(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image recording device, an image reproducing device, a recording medium, an image recording method, and a program, and more particularly to an image recording device that records high-speed captured image to a removable recording medium, the recording medium in which the high-speed captured image are recorded by the image recording device, and an image reproducing device that reproduces the high-speed captured image recorded in the recording medium.
(2) Description of the Related Art
There are known image recording devices, such as recordable DVD camcorders, that generate high-speed captured image having a frame rate higher than 30 frames per second (fps). Slow playback of the high-speed captured image captured at such a high frame rate enables high-accuracy analysis. Therefore, the image recording devices generating high-speed captured image are used in the fields of research and development.
An example of the conventional image recording devices generating high-speed captured image is disclosed in, for example, Patent Reference of Japanese Patent No. 2718409 that changes a size of each of frames in high-speed captured image to a child screen size, then multiplexes a frame to other frame(s) as being divided on a screen, and records the multiplexed data as normal image.
However, the conventional image recording device disclosed in Japanese Patent No. 2718409 has a problem that image quality of each frame is deteriorated because each frame is size-reduced before being recorded. In addition, when the resulting image is reproduced by image reproducing devices not supporting reproduction of high-speed reproduction image, the resulting image is displayed as being divided on a screen. That is, the conventional image recording device disclosed in Japanese Patent No. 2718409 has a problem of failing to ensure compatibility with image reproducing devices having conventional standards which do not support reproduction of high-speed reproduction image.
In the meanwhile, another image recording device is disclosed in, for example, Patent Reference of Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2007-104584 that records, from among frames in high-speed captured image having a frame rate higher than 30 fps, frames equivalent to image having a frame rate of 30 fps to a removable memory, and the remaining frames to a different memory.
This image recording device disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2007-104584 does not perform a size reduction of each frame and the like, and therefore prevents the image quality deterioration. Moreover, the image recording device of Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2007-104584 can ensure compatibility with image reproducing devices having conventional standards which do not support reproduction of high-speed reproduction image, by storing frames equivalent to image having a frame rate of 30 fps in high-speed captured image to a memory and other frames to a different memory and then using only the frames equivalent to image having a frame rate of 30 fps.
However, since the frames equivalent to image having a frame rate of 30 fps and other frames are stored separately in respective different memories, this conventional image recording device of Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2007-104584 has a problem of difficulty in managing these frames as high-speed captured image.
Moreover, if high-speed captured image is divided into pieces to be recorded by the image recording device as disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2007-104584, an image reproducing device needs to reproduce the high-speed captured image by detecting relationships of reproduction timings among the divided pieces.